I woke up yesterday to a world that seemed to have changed overnight. With the threat of coronavirus making its rounds throughout our communities, our governor made the difficult decision to cancel school for six weeks. After a quick last minute shopping trip, looking at empty shelves and realizing that the toilet paper shortage is a real thing, I picked my daughters up from school in what felt like a daze.
My heart felt heavy and my anxiety felt close to skyrocketing. I saw children, friends of my daughters, wailing in the parking lot over the cancellation. I saw parents looking as if the weight of the world was on their shoulders. I saw teachers close to tears and even our own principal seemed unusually sad.
My mind has been riddled with anxiety. I’m frightened of the virus. I’m frightened for my grandmother who resides in a nursing home. I’m frightened of the loss of wages that my husband and I will experience. I’m frightened for our economy. Even entertaining the thought of another recession, makes me sick to my stomach.
But….the one thing that I’m not frightened of is spending the next six weeks with my beautiful daughters. The situation sucks…I get that. I know it’s incredibly frustrating for most parents. There is reason to worry…reason to fear but I’m choosing to consider the positive in all of this.
I get to spend six weeks with my children and enjoy their childhood with them. My daughters are seven and ten. Their days as children are numbered and I can almost hear the clock ticking. They are growing so fast and most days I hardly feel as if I can keep up. I sometimes feel as if their childhoods are slowly slipping away and the teenage years are just on the horizon.
I’m choosing to view these next six weeks as an opportunity to enjoy my children as children. I’m prepared for a messy house, a table cluttered with papers and crayons, overflowing laundry and homeschooling. I’m prepared for hours outside, exploring our property, tending to our chickens and kicking around a soccer ball.
I’m looking forward to painting kindness rocks, baking together, reading before bed and completing our science fair project that will probably never be seen. I’m choosing to look at the positive in the madness of our insane world. I get to spend six weeks with my children. Six weeks that would normally be spent at school, away from me. I’m never going to view that as a negative thing.
My very soul has always belonged to my children. I wanted them, dreamed of them and felt them within me long before I ever met my husband. From the moment they were born, I knew my life was finally complete. I’m choosing the positive in this crazy, messed up world we now live in. If this school cancellation rolls clear into next fall like they are starting to predict, then…it’s just more time for me to enjoy my family.
